Vengeful Spirits
by TeddyBear98
Summary: A lot of people died at STAR Labs the night the Particle Accelerator exploded. When Barry, Cisco and Caitlin begin experiencing some strange and increasingly dangerous occurrences in the facility, they come to realize that not all of them have moved on - and they're definitely not happy. Set during early season 1
1. Unexplained Noises

**Author's Note:** Hey guys, welcome to the first chapter of my new story! I'm super excited to be working on this one, and I hope you all will enjoy! I've actually put some effort into researching things about ghosts and hauntings to try and make this better! Hope it pays off! I know this is under 2000 words, which I always try to avoid, but this is just the first chapter - the next ones will be longer!

* * *

Barry wasn't quite sure what had first started drawing his attention to the strange sounds.

There was always so much background noise at STAR Labs in general that it was almost weird he had managed to isolate the ones that didn't seem to quite belong: alternating small metallic bangings, like someone hitting a pipe, and a kind of knocking, almost methodic as it echoed throughout the building. Once he had noticed them, however, it was frustratingly impossible to ignore - and he had roped his friends into focusing on them as well.

"Cisco, that noise is driving me crazy. _Please_ tell me you figured out what it is," the speedster said as he walked into the Cortex. He had been in the building for all of two minutes, and already he was exasperated. In his defence, however, it had been about a week since he had first made the discovery of whatever it was - and it was not going away.

The engineer turned around to look at Barry as he strode in, shaking his head with a huff. "Dude, I swear to God, I've looked _everywhere_. Anytime I feel like I'm getting close to it, it just stops!"

Barry sighed at the response. In reality, he probably should have been the one searching for the source, what with his newfound super speed. Cisco, however, knew the facility much better than Barry did. He had been working there for several years, whereas Barry had barely been anywhere but the Cortex in the short time since waking up from his coma.

"Damn," he muttered.

"What are we talking about?" The new voice belonged to Caitlin, just getting in for the morning, an eyebrow raised as she saw the two boys already there; usually she was the most punctual, especially considering that Barry didn't even work there. She was rivaled only by Dr. Wells in her earliness, but the man was out of town for a few days, supposedly attending some science seminar. It was a Saturday, however - the young CSI didn't have to be at the precinct, which explained his current presence.

"The noise," Cisco supplied for her, and Barry watched as the doctor rolled her eyes.

"You knuckleheads are still hung up on that?" she asked, setting down her bag. "Honestly, it's probably the pipes acting up, or rats on one of the lower levels or something. This place isn't exactly top of the line ever since the…explosion."

"Oh _hell_ no. It better not be rats," Cisco said, and Barry snorted.

"At least if it's rats we can do something about it," he pointed out with a shrug. "Maybe we should set some traps."

"I can pick some up later," Caitlin said with an amused smile. "Until then, just try and tune it out. I think it's stopped now anyways," she added, sitting down by the computer monitors.

"Yeah, for now," Cisco muttered, and Caitlin laughed.

"You see what you've done, Barry?"

The speedster shrugged. "Hey, we're a team now, right? If I suffer, you guys should suffer too," he joked, crossing his arms; Caitlin shook her head at both boys.

"Alright, enough talk of these mysterious noises. Training time, Barry. Just because Dr. Wells isn't here doesn't mean we're skipping it. Hit the treadmill."

"Yes ma'am," Barry said with an amused grin, speeding over to the treadmill room in a blur of lightning; several papers went flying.

"We really need to get some paper weights," Cisco sighed, beginning to pick them up. Caitlin chuckled, moving to follow Barry.

"Definitely."

* * *

"Alright, Bar, slow it down - that's enough for today!"

An hour later, at Caitlin's command, Barry came to a stop on the treadmill, panting slightly but with a large smile plastered on his face.

"Man, that was awesome!" Cisco commended from behind the glass window he and Caitlin watched from, his smile nearly as wide as Barry's. "You almost hit a thousand miles per hour! If you keep steadily improving like this, there's no telling how fast you'll get," he said excitedly, eyes practically sparkling. Barry let out a laugh, still grinning as he hopped off of the treadmill and joined his friends outside of the room.

"Yeah, it's pretty cool," he admitted as Cisco clapped him on the back. Caitlin smiled at the two boys.

"You need to go eat something, Barry," she said. "Cisco left a bunch of the new calorie bar prototypes in the storage room. Go grab a few."

"On it," he replied, zipping quickly off. He at least knew where _that_ was, not far from the Cortex they spent most of their time in. He skidded to a stop in the middle of the room, just short of slamming himself into one of the shelves; he definitely had to work on stopping better, but for now he shook it off as scanned the area, searching for the bars that Cait had said were there somewhere. They weren't the tastiest things going, but at least they helped with his new enhanced appetite. After a few seconds, he spotted a box of them at the top of one of the shelves across the room. Smiling to himself, he walked over, reaching up to grab the box - but he never got to.

Without warning, the large shelf suddenly pitched forward - fast enough that, even with his newly developed powers, he was unable to avoid it in his surprise. He was utterly helpless as it fell on top of him, pinning him hard and causing him to slam his head painfully against the floor as he landed on his back. The unfortunate speedster groaned, head throbbing and body aching, black spots threatening to overtake his vision as he laid there. Thankfully, he didn't have to wait long before Caitlin and Cisco came running in, eyes wide at the scene they stumbled across.

"Oh God, Barry!" Caitlin shrieked in surprise, her voice slightly muffled in his daze. The doctor immediately rushed over to one side of the shelf. "Cisco, other side! We have to lift it," he heard her direct the engineer as he focused on trying to blink away the blackness still swimming at the edge of his vision. There were grunts of effort as, out of his line of sight, the two slowly worked on lifting the heavy object off of him. After a minute or two, the pressure on his body finally relented, and he felt a pair of arms dragging him quickly across the floor before the shelf was dropped again, too heavy for Cisco to hold on his own.

"Easy, Barry," Caitlin advised in a worried tone as the two of them got him to his feet, easing his arms around their shoulders and practically dragging him down to the room they had dubbed the med bay. He blinked hard again as they laid him down on the single bed in, still attempting to get his vision back to normal and his wits completely back about him.

"Dude, what happened?" Cisco's voice asked from the right side of the bed as Caitlin grabbed a penlight and started shining it into his eyes; he squinted against it, lamely trying to swat her hand away.

"The shelf fell," he groaned out, wincing as Caitlin shut the light off but immediately started poking and prodding different areas of his body.

"Yeah, we gathered that much," Cisco snorted somewhat amusedly. "I mean _how?_ " he clarified. "Those things aren't exactly easy to topple."

"Mmh, dunno," Barry muttered, attempting to hit Caitlin's hand away again as she touched a particularly tender spot on his right shoulder.

"Stop that," she admonished, though, much to Barry's relief, pulled her hand away seconds later. "I don't think anything's broken, but your right wrist definitely has nasty sprain and I'm almost positive you gave yourself a minor concussion," she said, giving him an odd look as if wondering the same exact thing Cisco had just asked.

"Great," Barry sighed, letting his eyes close and wishing not for the first time in the short period since gaining his powers that pain meds would work on him. He heard Caitlin sigh, and cracked open his eyes to see Cisco shaking his head.

"I can see the headlines now: Central City's New Vigilante Injured After Vicious Shelf Attack. I can send Iris the details, since she's taken such an interest in writing about the mysterious red streak," he joked. If Barry didn't think it would hurt, he would have rolled his eyes. Caitlin at least seemed to have his back.

"Not funny, Cisco," she said, crossing her arms. "He could have been seriously hurt. Those things weigh a ton."

"I'll live," Barry grunted, throwing the arm with his non-sprained wrist over his eyes; the lights weren't helping with his headache.

Caitlin frowned, looking down at him. "Get some rest, Barry. You'll feel better in a few hours," she advised, dimming the lights in the med bay and grabbing Cisco by the arm, pulling him out of the room to give Barry some quiet. She released him once they were out, sighing.

"Will you take a look at the shelf, Cisco?" she asked. "I don't know what on earth could have possibly made it fall."

Cisco shrugged. "Maybe he just bumped into it hard?" he suggested, but Caitlin shook her head.

"If that were the case, it would have fallen away from him, not towards him," she pointed out. "I'm thinking it must be unstable, or the floor is starting to slant. There's no one to look out for that kind of thing anymore," she added sadly.

"I don't know what I can do, but I'll look," Cisco said, patting her lightly on the shoulder with a soft smile. He hated seeing her sad, and it was an occurrence that happened much more often since the explosion that had changed everything; she gave him an appreciative look before walking off to one of the labs behind the Cortex, most likely to look at Barry's cells under the microscope again or something. He headed the opposite way, cautiously walking back into the storage room and eyeing the other shelves warily as he approached the fallen one.

He crouched down behind it, observing the bottom for any kind of anomaly or broken piece, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. He then took to looking at the floor, searching for any dips, cracks or unevenness, but again drew a blank. Cisco sighed, standing back up and crossing his arms as he looked down at the shelf; he shook his head at the object before walking back out of the room. This place was falling apart.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Let me know your thoughts on how the first chapter went, and theories for the future! Until next time guys!


	2. Blackout

As she tended to always be, Caitlin was right: it didn't take more than a few hours for Barry to start to feel much better after the whole shelf incident. By the next day, it was as if it had never happened - besides the fact that if one were to walk into the storage room, they would see the downed shelf that none of the three of them had bothered to try and pick up. Barry, somewhat embarrassed over the whole thing, did his best to push it out of his mind. He was just thankful that he had fully healed, and would not have to call his boss to try and get out of work on Monday because of it; that was a conversation he would not have looked forward to in the least. When he walked into STAR Labs on Sunday, he expected things to be normal.

He was wrong.

"Ow ow ow! Get them off! Get them off!"

"Damn it, Cisco, I said hold still!"

Barry raised an eyebrow at the shouting he heard echoing down the hallway as he headed for the Cortex. When he walked in, it was to the sight of Cisco flailing his arms, a mouse trap clamped down on both of his hands as Caitlin tried to grab them. Despite the pain he appeared to be in, Barry couldn't help but burst into laughter at the entire thing. Cisco's head snapped around at the noise, leaving his arms still enough for Caitlin to finally yank the contraptions off, causing him to yell again in pain.

"What the _hell_ happened?" the speedster asked amusedly, and Cisco shot him a halfhearted glare as he rubbed at his sore fingers.

"What, never seen a man with rodent traps stuck on his fingers?" he asked, and noting Barry's look, immediately cut him off before he could answer. "It happens, alright? At least I didn't drop an entire shelf on myself."

"Hey, I'm telling you, I didn't touch that," Barry said in defense. "It just fell."

"Uh huh," Cisco replied smugly, an amused look of his own on his face now.

"Oh, would you two stop it?" Caitlin jumped in. "Barry, will you help set these down? Cisco apparently can't handle it," she said with a pointed look at the other man, who muttered something under his breath about how complicated they were.

"I thought we were putting them on the lower levels?" Barry questioned.

"I already put a few down there," Caitlin answered. "But when we got here earlier, the noises seemed to be more concentrated in the Cortex. So either the rats moved, or it's not rats," she added with a shrug. "But we'll wait and see if these do anything before looking into other causes."

"Okay, sounds good," Barry said, shrugging as well and reaching to grab some of the traps from Caitlin.

"I swear, it just keeps getting louder," Cisco said, coming back from his desk with bandages on his fingers where the traps had snapped. "It doesn't _sound_ like rats. Don't they just chew on wires? This sounds like someone banging on the walls or something."

"That's what I was thinking," Barry said with a slight frown. "But I don't know, let's at least try these. If it's not rats, maybe it's the pipe systems in the wall or something. Do you think anyone would actually be willing to come in here and check that out?" he asked, setting one of the traps down under the desk with all of the computer monitors.

"I doubt it," Caitlin said with a sigh. "No one wants to come here after everything that's happened. Dr. Wells was barely even able to convince Joe to let us move you here while you were in your coma, even when the hospital couldn't do anything else."

Barry sighed as well. "Then I guess we hope it's rats," he said simply, setting down the second trap he had taken in the corner. "And that these do the trick. If they gnaw on any wires, then it could be -"

As if on cue, the lights in the room suddenly flickered a few times before going out completely.

" - bad," Barry finished lamely, frowning once again.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding," Cisco said loudly, throwing his hands up frustratedly; Caitlin simply sighed again.

"I think the circuit breaker is in the basement," she said.

"I've got it," Barry answered, to which she raised an eyebrow.

"Do you even know where the basement is?" she asked.

The answer to that, Barry realized, was no. Before now, actually, he hadn't even realized the place _had_ a basement.

"I'll go with him," Cisco said, sparing Barry from having to answer. "I'm probably the one who knows the most about the damn thing anyways."

"I'll stay here," Caitlin said. "See if I can find any busted wires."

Cisco nodded, turning to look at Barry briefly before heading for the door leading out of the Cortex. "Come on, lightning boy," he called over his shoulder, and despite the situation, Barry chuckled and followed after him.

"Why does this place even need a basement?" he asked, easily catching up to Cisco and keeping stride beside him as they started walking down the several sets of stairs down to the lowest level of the facility. "There are already so many floors." Cisco shrugged.

"It was just used as extra storage, kind of a place to keep any failed or abandoned projects without them being in the way," he answered. "We haven't been down there since the explosion, though…it's kind of close to where the Particle Accelerator was kept. I don't really know what the damage will be like."

A few minutes later, the pair finally made it down, and Cisco drew in a breath before pushing open the door that lead to the basement. They descended down one more small set of stairs before entering the rather large space. It was nearly completely dark. With no windows in the area, the only source of light came from a few cracks interspersed throughout the walls, no doubt damage caused by the explosion. Both Cisco and Barry squinted for a moment into the blackness before Barry thought to pull his phone from his pocket, turning on the flashlight and letting it illuminate their surroundings.

"Oh, not as bad as I thought," Cisco said slowly, nodding to himself. Aside from a few knocked over projects and the few cracks in the wall, the basement seemed to have been largely unaffected by the blast nearly a year ago. "Anyways, circuit breaker's on the far wall," Cisco said, motioning for Barry to follow him with the light. Barry made it a point to look around as he followed Cisco, glancing at all of the abandoned ideas and inventions illuminated by his phone light that had been dumped and left to gather dust. A few looked interesting, promising even, though he had no idea what half of them were. The two stopped when they reached the far wall, and Barry held his phone up, letting the light shine over the panel set into the wall. Cisco immediately opened it, scanning over all the switches and buttons inside until he found the one for the main power source.

"Bingo," he announced, reaching out to flip it with a smile on his face. The smile fell, however, when nothing happened; the pair was still left standing in the dark, Barry's phone flashlight and the few cracks in the wall still the only source of light in the room. The engineer frowned now, turning around and craning his neck to try and look back up the stairs they had come down. The hallway up there still appeared dark as well.

"Huh," he muttered, turning back to the circuit breaker. "That's weird."

"Well, if the wires did get chewed through, doesn't that make sense?" Barry asked, raising an eyebrow.

"In reality, that really shouldn't be affecting the entire building," Cisco said, puzzling as he tried flipping the switch on and off a few more times. Again, nothing happened, and Barry frowned now too.

"Yeah, that is weird," he admitted, running a hand through his hair and staring at the circuit breaker himself, looking for anything that might have caused the blackout. He only turned away when, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a figure coming up behind him. "Oh, Caitlin, did you find anything -" he started as he whirled around, but was surprised to see no one there. Cisco mimicked his action, shooting him a weird look upon seeing him talking to no one.

"Dude, Caitlin stayed upstairs," he said. Confusedly, Barry quickly shone his flashlight around the entire space, but saw nothing; him and Cisco were the only two down there.

"Yeah, I just - I thought I saw someone," he said. "But it was probably just a shadow from the light," he added, shaking his head and trying to shrug it off.

"Probably," Cisco said, already refocused back on the circuit breaker. "Well, there's absolutely nothing wrong with this thing, as far as I can tell. Whatever the problem is, it's not this. Let's head back up and see if Caitlin figured anything out."

"Yeah, alright," Barry replied, moving to follow Cisco as he started back for the stairs they had come down to descend into the basement. They were only about halfway up, however, when Barry suddenly whirled around again to face the dark space below them, dropping his phone in his haste.

"What the hell?" Cisco asked, startled by Barry's sudden movement and the near-total darkness as his phone hit the step below them. The speedster picked it up quickly, shining it back down the stairs with an alarmed look on his face. "Barry?" Cisco prompted when he didn't immediately explain himself.

"Did you just touch my shoulder?" he demanded, not even looking back up at the engineer; Cisco's eyebrows shot up.

"Uhm, no," he responded, eyebrows furrowing now as he watched Barry carefully.

"I swear, it felt like someone just grabbed my shoulder," he said, his gaze still fixed intently down the stairs.

"Dude, there's no one down there," Cisco said. "You, me and Caitlin are the only ones in the building. You probably just brushed against the wall or something. Don't be so paranoid," he advised, his voice slightly teasing. "You coming back up or what?"

"...yeah," he answered slowly, skeptically searching the room below him for another moment before turning back around. Cisco was right - there was no one down there. It had felt like a hand, but he must have just hit the wall. They started back up the stairs.

* * *

"There you two are," Caitlin's voice rang out as Barry and Cisco reentered the Cortex. She materialized from inside the med bay, a bright flashlight clutched in her hand that she quickly pointed downwards so as not to blind them. "Circuit breaker didn't do anything?" She asked; Cisco shook his head.

"Nada," he replied. "No busted wires?" he asked in return, though the answer was rather obvious.

"None that I could find. I have no idea what caused this," she responded, gesturing vaguely around her at the darkness with a somewhat annoyed expression on her face.

"Maybe the basement person caused it," Cisco teased lightly, elbowing Barry, who groaned; he'd probably be hearing about that for days. Caitlin raised an eyebrow.

"Basement person?" she questioned, clearly confused.

"Don't -" Barry started, but Cisco pushed on anyways.

"Barry thought he saw someone in the basement," Cisco explained amusedly. "Classic horror movie, am I right?"

Caitlin, however, didn't look amused. The doctor frowned, giving Barry a quick onceover with her eyes. "Is your head feeling okay?" she asked. "Any pain leftover from yesterday?"

"I'm _fine_ ," the speedster insisted as he realized what she was getting at. "I'm not still concussed. It was nothing," he huffed, shooting Cisco a look that silently urged him not to mention the second incident; thankfully, he seemed to get the message, and let the subject drop.

Caitlin looked between the two for a moment with narrowed eyes, as if considering pursuing the subject, but apparently decided not to. "...okay," she said with a sigh. "But I'm out of ideas."

"Joe knows a little bit about this kind of thing. Maybe I could have him -" Barry began, but paused when, with as little warning as when they had gone out, the lights flickered back on.

"Well, nevermind then," Barry said, blinking against the sudden return of the brightness.

"Huh. Maybe the circuit breaker just needed a little time to warm up?" Cisco questioned.

"I couldn't care less, as long as they stay on," Caitlin said, turning her flashlight off with a relieved-looking smile.

"Amen to that," Cisco said with a grin, and Barry chuckled.

"Barry, you can skip the treadmill until we're sure everything's working right. We don't want you flying off again," Caitlin said to the speedster, and Cisco snorted, calling to mind the image of Barry crashing into the boxes of packing peanuts not long ago; Barry rolled his eyes at the man.

"In that case, I'm gonna go catch up with Iris. We were planning on going to see a movie," Barry said with a smile. "See you guys later." And with that he was gone in a flash of lightning.

"Think he'll ever confess his undying love to her?" Cisco asked amusedly after Barry had gone, and Caitlin smiled softly.

"We'll see," she said, looking slightly amused as well before walking out the way Barry had gone. Cisco chuckled and moved to follow her.

He stopped in his tracks when something across the room went airborne and sailed towards his head.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Somewhat of a cliffhanger? Sorry haha. Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! Until next time :)


	3. Lighten Up

It was funny how, when startled greatly, thoughts weren't always the most logical. Cisco, for example, found himself suddenly grateful that both Barry and Caitlin were no longer in the Cortex to hear his undignified yelp as he dove to the floor to avoid being hit by the speeding projectile that definitely seemed intent on slamming into his head. Eyes wide and heart pounding, he got shakily to his feet once he heard the object crash into the wall behind him. He made his way slowly over and crouched down beside the now-broken – desk lamp?

"What the _hell?_ " Cisco asked aloud to himself, standing up and swivelling his head to stare at the metal table, set against the wall opposite the desk with the computer monitors; sure enough, the lamp that had been sitting on it was no longer there, because holy _shit,_ it had flown across the room at high speed and nearly crushed his skull. And there was absolutely no logical explanation he could think of as to why it had happened. It was as if it had been thrown, and there was _no one_ in the room with him that could have done it.

"Caitlin!" he called out. He could hear the panic in his own voice, but couldn't bring himself to care now. "Caitlin, get in here!" Thankfully, the woman hadn't gone far. Nearly right after he had called her, he could hear her quick footsteps as she came back, appearing through the doorway only seconds later.

"What is it?" she asked, looking somewhat concerned.

" _That's_ the problem," Cisco said, stepping back and pointing to the busted desk lamp on the floor. Caitlin gave him a puzzled look.

"You broke the lamp?" she asked, clearly not comprehending why he was so freaked out.

"No, the lamp tried to break me!" he said. "It freaking lifted itself off of the table and flew at me!"

At his urgent words, Caitlin's eyebrows shot up. "It…flew at you?"

"Yes!" Cisco practically shouted.

"Okay, just calm down," the doctor said gently, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder to try and placate him. Cisco did his best to listen, taking in a deep breath in an attempt to get his heartbeat back to normal.

"Cait, that thing almost killed me," he said seriously, his voice wary.

"Okay, I'm sure there's a perfectly logical -"

"Nah uh," Cisco cut her off, shaking his head insistently. "There was nothing logical about that."

Caitlin frowned, thinking carefully for a few moments before she spoke again. "Do you…do you think it could be a meta?" she asked slowly.

"You mean, like, in STAR Labs?" Cisco asked, and Cait nodded. Cisco frowned too now, considering her words. "...Barry did think he saw someone in the basement," he added, seeming wary. "He said it even felt like someone touched him."

"You didn't tell me he felt someone touch him," Caitlin said, crossing her arms, and Cisco gave her an apologetic look.

"I don't think he wanted me to. And anyways, I thought he was just being paranoid. I didn't see anyone. But now…" he trailed off, looking nervously around the room. "Cait, if it's a meta, it could still be in the room," he said, lowering his voice, and Caitlin suddenly looked much more concerned.

"Call Barry."

* * *

After Cisco's semi-frantic call to the speedster, without many details included, it only took him a few minutes to get break away from Iris and get back to STAR Labs. He came speeding into the Cortex, skidding to a stop in front of Caitlin and Cisco.

"Iris is _not_ happy about me skipping out on the movie," he informed the two, but quickly switched tracks. "What happened?"

"We think there's a metahuman in the building," Cisco said quietly, eyes flicking side-to-side as if looking for said meta. Barry was immediately on alert, also scanning the room, but they appeared to be the only three there.

"Why would a meta want to break in here?" Barry questioned.

"I don't know, revenge? This place is the source of their powers, and the ones we've encountered so far don't seem too happy about that," Cisco pointed out. "But we need to find them and get them into the pipeline, ASAP."

"What makes you think there even _is_ one in here?" Barry asked in turn, and Caitlin pointed towards the wall. The speedster looked over and spotted the broken desk lamp on the floor, raising an eyebrow.

"Cisco says it just lifted off the table and flew at him, like someone threw it," she explained. "Plus, you said you thought you saw someone in the basement," she added. "The two events could be related."

"So…we're potentially dealing with a metahuman who can turn invisible?" Barry asked, and Cisco and Cait nodded.

"Great, just what this Sunday needs," the speedster said sarcastically, and was in his Flash suit in seconds, cowl pulled up to hide his face. "So what's the plan?"

"Uh, yeah, we didn't exactly get that far," Cisco informed him.

"Seriously?" he asked, raising an eyebrow, and Cisco crossed his arms now.

"Okay, I don't see _you_ coming up with anything." Barry sighed.

"Well what do you want me to do?" he asked. "I'm fast – I can't see invisible people."

Caitlin stepped in then, in an effort to try and break the building tension. "Okay, let's calm down and think about this rationally," she said, giving the two boys stern looks. "Whoever it is wouldn't want to move too far from the Cortex, if they attacked Cisco. Just – search the surrounding rooms, see if anything seems off or has any signs at all that anyone besides us has been in there," she said to Barry. "Cisco, check the surveillance cameras; I'll keep watch to make sure nothing else…flies at you." Both boys nodded, and Barry was off in a blur of red and yellow, Cisco immediately walking over to the monitors and sitting down. His fingers worked fast on the keyboard, opening the program for the security cameras with a determined expression on his face. Caitlin stood close by him, eyes constantly scanning the room to be sure nothing out of the ordinary was happening. The only metahuman activity she witnessed, however, was Barry speeding back into the room after a few minutes. There was a frown on his face.

"I didn't see anything weird," he said, reaching up to pull his cowl down. "Don't you think they'd want to _do_ something, if there were someone here?" he asked. "If they went through the trouble of breaking in?"

"We already speculated that they're _invisible,_ Barry," Cisco replied without looking up from the computer monitor he was looking at. "And they did do something. They tried to hit me with a freaking lamp." Barry opened his mouth to respond, but Cisco groaned frustratedly, stopping him. "But there's nothing on the cameras either. There should at least be footage of a door opening, or _something._ "

"Maybe it's not a metahuman after all," Caitlin said gently. "We might have jumped to conclusions a little fast."

"What other way would that lamp have flown at me?" Cisco questioned. "That doesn't make any sense."

"Maybe it got blown back by the force of Barry running out?" she asked slowly, thinking aloud. "The table where it was sitting on is by the doorway, and the draft that he creates when he takes off is pretty significant." Cisco frowned, not looking very convinced.

"I mean – it could have, I guess," he said, eyeing the lamp still on the floor skeptically. "But what about Barry's thing, in the basement?"

Caitlin shrugged. "Barry's been pushing himself a lot, what with insisting on fighting metas as well as crime," she said with a pointed look at the speedster, who rubbed his neck and gave her a sheepish smile. "In all honesty, that could be chalked up to tiredness. Or paranoia. No one likes dark basements."

Cisco sighed, running a hand through his hair.

"I guess that makes sense," he agreed reluctantly, and Caitlin nodded, looking back to Barry.

"Sorry to take you away from Iris, Barry. But thanks for coming. You're free to go back."

Barry smiled happily. "I will," he said, quickly speed-changing out of his suit and back into his regular clothes. He paused when he was done, looking at his two friends. "But if anymore, ah, objects go flying, don't hesitate to call me," he added before speeding back out of the Cortex, leaving Caitlin and Cisco alone once again. The doctor looked back over to Cisco, whose attention was focused back on the broken lamp.

"You okay?" she asked sympathetically, and he nodded, looking back over to her.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he said. "Just shaken up, I guess."

"Of course," Caitlin said with understanding, giving him a soft, comforting smile. "Listen, why don't you go home and get some rest? We don't really have anything important to do, since we're not having Barry train today. Take a break. I'll take care of the lamp, don't worry about it." Cisco raise an eyebrow.

"You sure?" he asked, and she nodded again.

"Positive," she assured him. "Go on, go home." Cisco gave her an appreciative smile.

"Thanks, Cait," he said, and wasted no time in leaving the Cortex; after both the power outage and the lamp incident, Caitlin didn't blame him the least bit. Once he was gone, she walked over to the opposite side of the room to grab the trash bin before walking back to the lamp, kneeling down on the floor to start scooping up the pieces. She only paused when she felt a sudden sharp pain on the side of her neck, dropping the pieces back onto the floor with an exclamation of discomfort.

She clapped a hand to the now-tender spot with a frown, rubbing it gingerly, and stood then, the lamp forgotten as she made her way quickly to the closest bathroom. Upon reaching it, she brushed her hair to one side and turned her head slightly, glancing into the mirror. At first, the skin looked completely undisturbed. But as she took a closer look, she could see that there were three angry red marks starting to form, starting right under her ear and stretching midway down her neck. She felt her heart rate pick up, her mind racing.

Were those – were those _scratches?_ Though it wouldn't do her any good, she internally started to panic. Oh God, was there actually a meta in STAR Labs? She had just sent both Barry and Cisco away, and now she was alone, and what if –

She sucked in a breath, trying to calm herself down. No. If someone had gotten close enough to scratch her, she would have…she would have _felt_ it. No one could have gotten so close without their breath on her neck, or brushing against her shoulder or –

She took another deep breath, her heart rate beginning to slow back down. But if it wasn't a meta, then what had made the marks?

She frowned, looking at them intently again and running her fingers gently over them. The doctor winced at the contact. There was no blood, which meant at least the skin hadn't been pierced, but they were definitely welted, and they hurt like hell. For a moment, she almost considered calling either Barry or Cisco back. But for what? She was the doctor, not them; they wouldn't be able to do anything for the injury, and she wasn't going to force Barry to search the place again. Not to mention that he was with Iris, and Cisco definitely deserved some relaxation after the day he had had. Caitlin sighed, walking out of the bathroom and into the med bay, where she quickly found a bottle of spray-on disinfectant and some gauze. She used the disinfectant on the scratches just to be on the safe side, hissing at the stinging it initiated atop of the pain that was already there. Then she taped the gauze on over the marks and got the hell out of there, the broken lamp forgotten.

Whatever was going on in STAR Labs, she did not want to deal with it alone.


	4. Theorizing

Though none of the three admitted it to each other, neither Caitlin, Cisco or Barry were overly keen on heading back to STAR Labs the next day. It was, however, their base of operations for everything metahuman and training related – they didn't have much of a choice. Barry, at least, got to go to his day job at the precinct; Caitlin and Cisco had to be at the facility early, to take care of business for Dr. Wells and monitor potential metahuman activity. Caitlin, as was typical, made it there first, but was fairly relieved when Cisco walked in just a few minutes later.

"Hey, Cait," he greeted with a smile, a lollipop in hand. Caitlin smiled gently back as he set his bag down.

"Morning," she said, watching as he came over to sit down beside her at the monitors. "Did you have a nice day off yesterday?"

Cisco chuckled a bit, though she detected what seemed like underlying nervousness in it; she didn't blame. "Yeah, it was fine," he said with a shrug. He took a lick of his lollipop and swiveled in his chair to face her, eyebrows furrowing a bit as his gaze landed on her neck. "Hey, what happened?" he asked. Caitlin stiffened a bit, her hand traveling up to rest over the patch of gauze. She had thought putting it over the marks would perhaps make them less noticeable than leaving them exposed, but she supposed this was bound to happen.

"It's nothing," she said quickly. "Just a scratch."

"That's a pretty big bandage," he pressed. "How'd you get scratched?"

Caitlin bit at her bottom lip as Cisco looked at her expectantly, a nervous habit she had picked up. "I…" she started unsurely, but luckily was spared having to answer the question at the sound of an alarm coming from one of the monitors. The conversation forgotten for the moment, Cisco rolled over to the one making the noise; Caitlin was glad for the distraction.

"Metahuman alert downtown," he informed her. "They're attacking Central City Bank."

"It always has to be the bank," she said with a sigh, pulling her cell phone out and dialing Barry's number quickly. He answered after only the second ring, his voice low, most likely in an effort not to get caught by any coworkers or his boss. "Barry, there's metahuman at the bank," she informed him. The words had barely left her mouth before the the speedster had hung up and appeared in the Cortex in a blur of lightning, changing into his suit before dashing back out. Caitlin shook her head in slight amusement, putting the phone down and rolling over to the com system they had recently set up.

"Barry, do you copy? Are you there?" she asked, speaking into the microphone after turning it on. There was a brief silence before his voice came through the device.

" _Yeah, I'm at the bank,"_ he confirmed. " _Listen, the meta is_ -"

The last part of the message never came through as suddenly there was nothing but static coming from the microphone, scrambling the rest of his words. Caitlin frowned, shooting a quick, worried look at Cisco.

"Barry, can you repeat that? Can you hear me?"

" _Meta is…I can't…hostages and…shit!"_

His voice came back through only in bits and pieces, leaving both Caitlin and Cisco completely unsure of most of what he was talking about.

"Barry, what's happening? Barry!" Caitlin tried again, but got only more static in response. The system was completely on the fritz; there was no way to know if Barry could hear them, and he couldn't reach out to them. Caitlin turned frantically back to Cisco, whose eyes were wide and clearly as worried as she was over the situation. "Cisco, can you fix it?"

"I don't know, I can try but –" The engineer cut himself off with a noise of surprise, jumping up suddenly from his chair and pulling Caitlin out of her own, away from the desk.

"Cisco, what the hell –!" she began, but stopped herself as well as she looked to the com system and saw that it was smoking. Thanks to the engineer, they were several feet away when it began to spark and then burst into flames. Caitlin let out a startled screech, breaking away from Cisco's grip and moving as fast as she could in her heels to make it to where they kept the fire extinguisher. She came back moments later to forcefully spray the blaze, panting slightly, wide eyes matching Cisco's. There wasn't much time to mull the situation over as once again a blur of lightning burst into the lab, and Barry was promptly there, leaning against the desk with his cowl down and a pained look on his face.

"Barry!" Caitlin exclaimed, immediately dropping the fire extinguisher to the floor and rushing to his side. There was a large tear in the fabric of his suit on his right shoulder, a nasty-looking burn on the exposed skin.

"I'm fine," the speedster said through gritted teeth. Clearly, he was _not_ fine, though Caitlin was relieved to see that the burn was the only visible injury on him; it could have been much worse.

"What happened?" she asked, leading him quickly to the med bay and forcing him to sit down on the bed, Cisco following.

"Fire-controlling meta," Barry groaned. "Took care of it, but – agh," he said as Caitlin started to unzip the top part of his suit and peel it off. Cisco didn't even complain about the rip in the fabric, clearly a little shaken up by what had just happened. The doctor looked more pleased to see that the area that the burn covered wasn't too large. The speedster had definitely gotten lucky.

"How'd you take care of him? Caitlin asked, an attempt to distract him from the pain as she went walked to the opposite side of the room to grab a washcloth, beginning to soak it under cool water.

"Knocked him out," Barry grunted as she returned to his side. "The cops were right around the corner when I left, they'll take it from there."

The speedster eyed Caitlin warily as she approached with the washcloth and hissed slightly in pain as it was placed over the burn, but then seemed to relax as the cold seeped into the injury, bringing him some relief. He smiled softly. "Thanks," he said gratefully. There was a beat of silence before he spoke up again. "What happened with com system?" he asked. "I tried to talk to you guys, but the line got filled with static."

"We're not sure," Caitlin admitted. "It went static on our end, too."

"Yeah, and then it caught on fire," Cisco added, and Barry's eyebrows shot up.

"It caught on _fire?_ " he asked, and Cisco and Cait nodded. "Well…I guess we're even, then?" the speedster tried for a lighthearted joke, motioning with his good arm to his burnt shoulder, but frowned when he finally noticed the gauze on Caitlin's neck.

"Hey, what happened to you?" he questioned, looking up at her, and Cisco turned to look at the doctor as well.

"I already asked that," he informed the hero, crossing his arms, and Caitlin sighed; there was no escaping the question this time – not with both of them waiting expectantly.

"Okay, okay," she said defeatedly, reaching up to peel the gauze off of her neck. Both boys looked concerned as they saw the long, irritated scratches running down her neck.

"How the hell'd you do that?" Cisco asked, now wearing a frown to match Barry's.

"That's the thing, I _didn_ ' _t,_ " Caitlin replied, biting at her lip. "After – after you both left yesterday, I was working on cleaning up the lamp pieces. There was just a sudden pain, and then they were just _there._ I didn't rub against anything, and there was no one else there," she told them. Neither of them spoke for several seconds after that, and for a moment, Caitlin was worried that they thought she was insane. But then Cisco spoke, and she quickly realized that that wasn't the issue.

"Please tell me that I'm _not_ the only one who see the vicious pattern happening here."

"...what do you mean?" Caitlin asked nervously, though she was certain that she knew what he was talking about. And judging by the look on Barry's face, he knew, too.

"Come on, you know what I'm talking about. The noises, the shelf falling on Barry; the power outage, the whole thing with the basement, the lamp; the com system failing and now you getting scratched? This can't all be coincidental," he said insistently. "There's no way."

"So…what are you suggesting?" Caitlin asked as she grabbed a roll of bandages and took the washcloth from Barry's shoulder, beginning to wrap it as a precaution. The speedster paid her practically no mind, focused on Cisco.

"Okay, look," Cisco began again. "I was thinking a lot about this last night, and I did some research…and I came up with a theory," he said, pausing for a moment before finishing his thought. "And you guys might think it sounds crazy. I mean, even _I_ think is sounds crazy, but I think – I think maybe we're being haunted."

"Haunted," Barry echoed, eyebrows furrowing. Cisco nodded.

"I know it sounds weird," Cisco was quick to continue. "But with all the stuff that's going on? Unless we're freaking cursed or something, you have to admit, it makes some kind of sense. Everything I read would point to poltergeists. They can make loud noises, move objects, mess with lights _and_ cause disturbances with electronic equipment."

"You really think that's what this is?" Caitlin asked with a skeptical yet uneasy expression.

"I hate to say it, but it's not too far-fetched," Barry chimed in. "We've been dealing with superpowered humans for the past two weeks or so. Ghosts almost seem more reasonable."

"Well, I'm not agreeing that it's ghosts," Caitlin said after a moment, "But…if it _were_ ghosts, why the hell would they want to haunt us? What would they even want?"

At this, Cisco paused and shifted, looking slightly uncomfortable. "I can't say for sure," he said slowly, his voice somewhat quiet. "But what if it's…what if it's people who died here?" he asked. "You know, after the explosion?"

Caitlin stiffened a bit, her face falling, and Cisco was quick to jump in again.

"Like I said, I don't know for sure," he continued. "I just thought it, well, made the most sense. But that might not be it. If we want all this stuff to stop, though…we're going to have to figure it out."

"And how would we do that?" Barry asked, raising an eyebrow. At this question at least, Cisco seemed to light up a little bit.

"Haven't you ever seen Ghost Adventures? Paranormal Lockdown? Any of those kind of shows?" Caitlin and Barry both shared a look before shaking their heads, appearing curious.

"Oh, come on!" Cisco said. "Classic ghost hunting! Great entertainment. Anyways, there's all this special equipment they use to gather evidence of their existence, and to try and find out what they want, how they died, stuff like that. It'd be a great way to prove that there's actually something happening, and figure out why," he said with a shrug.

"You're seriously suggesting we ghost hunt in STAR Labs?" Caitlin asked."You think that's the best course of action? Especially after what's already happened?"

"I don't see why not," Cisco replied. "How else are we supposed to deal with it?"

"You know Dr. Wells would probably kill us, right?" she retorted.

"But he's not here," Barry jumped in. "And he won't be back for a few more days. I say we go for it."

Caitlin looked briefly between the two boys with slight disbelief, shaking her head. "You guys are 100% crazy," she said with a sigh. "But if we're going to do this, how do we go about it?"

"I'd have to get the equipment first," Cisco said. "But believe it or not, I actually know a guy who dabbles in this kind of stuff. I met him through a project I was working on when I first started up here. He could probably hook us up."

"And after that?" Barry asked.

"Then we stay here overnight and do a lockdown," Cisco continued. "Split up, cover the building, and do everything we can to gather evidence and eventually get them out of the building."

Caitlin sighed again, looking uneasy once more at the prospect of staying at the facility overnight and potentially provoking something dangerous, not to mention being separated after everything that had been going on.

"You know, I _really_ hope you're wrong, Cisco," she admitted. "Metahumans are one thing, but ghosts? I don't even want to think about it." The engineer gave her a half-hearted, sympathetic smile.

"Honestly?" he said. "I hope I'm wrong too."


	5. Ghostbusters

It wasn't until Friday that Cisco was finally able to get together with his contact, and by the time the meeting rolled around, Team Flash was relieved. Though there still hadn't been 100% agreement that it was, in fact, ghosts causing the mysterious happenings in STAR Labs, they were all ready to figure it out, desperate to get things back to normal around the complex. Just in the three days between Cisco announcing his theory and his meeting with his contact, Caitlin had been harshly knocked out of her desk chair, Cisco had gotten scratched, and there had been an unfortunate incident where Barry had gotten briefly knocked out from a heavy door suddenly flinging open. Though, Cisco had said that he deserved it for laughing when he got rat traps stuck on his fingers. It was around noon when the engineer made it to STAR Labs, lugging several bags into the Cortex. Caitlin was sitting with Barry, who had made the trip over on his lunch break.

"Whoa, that's a lot of bags," Barry observed, quickly moving to help his friend as he spotted him walking in. All of them were quickly set down, and Caitlin raised an eyebrow.

"Is all that stuff for the lockdown?" She asked. Cisco nodded.

"All of it," he confirmed as Barry started to rifle through the bags.

"What is all of it?" the speedster asked curiously.

"Well, there's an EMF detector, EVP recorders, a night vision camera, a thermal camera, extra batteries…" Cisco trailed off. "And probably more than that. But that's the basic stuff, which is really all we need."

"Do you know how any of it works?" Caitlin questioned as she watched the boys start to sort through the bags.

"For the most part," Cisco said. "James – the guy I met with – he gave me a run-down on how to use it all. It's not too hard, really. I'll show you guys before tonight."

"So we are doing it tonight, then?" Caitlin asked, and Barry looked to her.

"Do you really want to wait any longer than we already have?" he asked seriously, and the doctor shook her head with a sigh. Things were getting far too intense for her liking, and whatever was happening, she wanted it to stop; they all did.

"What are you going to tell Joe and Iris?" Cisco asked Barry after they had finished emptying all of the bags. Barry's face scrunched up.

"I don't know," he admitted. "I guess I'll just say I'm staying at your place or something. Joe doesn't believe in ghosts, but I still don't think he'd be happy with us doing this. Iris doesn't know I've been working here at all, but she knows I've been spending time with you guys. I don't think she'll think it's weird if I say I'm staying with you."

Cisco shrugged. "Whatever works, man," he said, and Barry nodded, glancing at the watch on his wrist.

"I have to get back to work," he said, but gave his two friends a pointed look first. "If anything happens," he started, "Call me. Otherwise, I'm out at 6:00 tonight and I'll come right here after."

Caitlin nodded, smiling softly at the speedster. "We'll call you if anything happens. Now go before you're late," she chided, and Barry smiled back at her, taking a cautionary look around the room before flashing out.

"I still can't believe we're doing this," Caitlin said with a sigh after he had gone, running a hand through her hair, and Cisco gave her a sympathetic look.

"Look at it this way," he said. "It's just one night, and then we can get back to normal. Or as normal as we were before at least, dealing with evil metahumans." Caitlin laughed softly.

"At least we're slightly more equipped to handle metas," she said. "Let's just hope tonight goes well." Cisco gave her a small smile.

"Hey, we're prepared and have a speedster on our side. What could go wrong?"

* * *

Barry for once in his life found himself on time as he raced from the precinct and over to STAR Labs practically as soon as his shift had ended, hastily giving Joe his excuse of staying over at Cisco's apartment before bolting. He flashed himself into the Cortex, startling both Caitlin and Cisco with his sudden entrance.

"Ah, Barry. Right on time," Cisco said, recovering quickly. The engineer had a small handheld camera in one hand, and motioned for Barry to come closer. "Ready to learn how all this marvelous equipment works?" he asked, waggling his eyebrows playfully. Barry snorted.

"Yeah, let's hear it," the speedster said, coming to a stop beside his two friends.

"Okay, so this little number is a night vision camera. Pretty simple. This button," he said, pointing, "Turns it on. And this one is for recording. It allows you to see where you're going better in the dark and records better in the dark, which will come in handy when we turn the lights off."

"Wait, why are we turning the lights off?" Caitlin interjected.

"Come on, Cait, how many ghost hunters have you heard of who investigate with the lights _on?_ It's science, or something."

Caitlin raised an eyebrow. "I don't know of any ghost hunters _period,_ Cisco, because before last week I didn't care about ghosts. And I really don't think it's a good idea to go running around this place in the dark."

"Well, that's why we have the night vision camera and flashlights," Cisco replied. "Also the thermal, which I'll show you in a minute. We'll be fine!" Caitlin eyed him skeptically but kept her mouth shut, and he continued. "Anyways, this one's a recorder," he said, putting the camera down and picking up a smaller object. "It's even easier to work. One button starts and stops recording, and it supposedly captures spirit voices. There's only one night vision camera, but I have one of these babies for each of us."

"And what's that one?" Barry asked, pointing.

"Ah, I'm getting there," Cisco replied, picking up the device Barry had pointed out. "This one's an EMF detector. When you turn this on, it'll be able to detect higher electromagnetic field readings in any given area. Supposedly spirits affect that kind of thing, so it's supposed to alarm if one is nearby."

Barry gave a brief nod of understanding.

"And lastly," Cisco pushed on, putting down the recorder and picking up another camera, "We'll be using this thermal camera. It's like the night vision one in the respect that it lets you see somewhat in the dark, but the point is to detect lower or higher heat signatures. You know, like cold spots and stuff."

"That's it?" Caitlin asked, and the engineer nodded.

"Yeah, I told you we don't really need to use everything I got. I think these are fine."

"So who gets what?" she asked as a follow-up.

"You can have the thermal," Cisco told her, handing the device over to her. "I think Barry might screw with it, since you've said his temperature runs a little hotter. And like I said, everyone gets a recorder. The rest…"

"You take the night vision cam, Cisco," Barry interrupted. "I'll be fine."

"Alright," Cisco replied with a shrug. "You can take the EMF detector then," he added, and handed it over. Barry proceeded to turn the device over in his hands, looking it over with mild curiosity. Barry, the only one without a camera to aid his vision, grabbed a flashlight from a nearby drawer.

"So are you guys ready?" Cisco asked. Caitlin drew in a deep breath and nodded as Barry steeled himself up. "Okay," he continued upon seeing their reactions, handing them each a flashlight. "I'll start in the basement and kill the lights from down there. You guys just – pick a direction and go. Good luck." And with that said, the engineer walked off, leaving Caitlin and Barry alone to give each other nervous looks before heading their different ways as well.

* * *

Despite Barry's readiness and willingness to agree to Cisco's plan, he found himself almost regretting it the moment the lights in the building went off, leaving him standing alone and in total darkness. The speedster found his heart rate picking up as he fumbled around with his flashlight for several seconds, finally getting it to turn on. It didn't do much to illuminate the surrounding area, but it was better than nothing. He sucked in an admittedly shaky breath before continuing on his way, flashlight clutched tightly in his right hand and the recorder Cisco had provided him with in his left. Honestly, he didn't even know where he was going. The vast majority of the place was abandoned and unused, and he really didn't know his way around it. He soldiered on anyways, searching for anything out of the usual. For nearly half an hour, nothing caught his attention.

It wasn't until he found himself on one of the lower levels that he heard it.

Barry stopped dead in his tracks, ears strained, and could make out a series of small metallic clanging sounds coming from somewhere down the hallway he had meandered into. And God, in the short time since becoming the Flash, he had faced so many dangerous and terrifying situations – but in that moment he found himself very much dreading what was to come even more than a metahuman attack. He took several deep breaths before turning his flashlight off, not wanting to draw attention to himself more than necessary, and switching the recorder on before creeping slowly towards the noises. They seemed to be originating from behind a closed door a few feet away. The speedster stopped briefly in front of the door upon reaching it, pressing himself closer to it without pushing it open just yet. Sure enough, he could clearly hear the clamor coming from inside. Barry bit at his lip, turning his head to look back the way he had come for several seconds as if hoping that Caitlin or Cisco would materialize and accompany him, but he was still very much alone. With a sigh and a small burst of cautious determination, he slowly pushed the door open.

Almost immediately, the EMF detector in his hand started alarming, causing him to jump, staring down at the small object with disbelief. He closed his eyes momentarily, working to keep himself in check. Just because the thing was supposed to detect spirits didn't mean it actually _did._ Hell, anything could be setting it off. And there still wasn't any evidence that the supposed spirits they were searching for evidence of even existed. Not that he was doubting that they could, but…well, he'd rather not think about it at the moment. Barry let out a breath and opened his eyes.

The inside of the room was just as dark as the hallway, though he was thankful his eyes had had some time to adjust to the blackness before arriving here. He blinked as he stepped carefully over the threshold, trying to ignore the annoying beeping of the device in his hand, his eyes vigilantly scanning where he had ended up, and nearly blanched.

This was the room the Particle Accelerator had been kept in. He could make out the outline of the large, broken device in the middle of the room, and –

Barry froze. As his eyes flittered over the machine, they were drawn to a seemingly dimly lit figure standing by it, hands moving skillfully over the thing as the metallic noises continued. This figure – a woman, he could make out, humming quietly under her breath – was the source of the sounds. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end, his heart beating erratically even as he tried to keep himself calm.

"Get a grip," he whispered to himself. It probably wasn't even something paranormal. Maybe the woman had broken in and gotten lost in the facility, or maybe –

Barry took a hesitant step forward, but stopped again as the figure suddenly turned around. His next breath hitched in his throat.

Because yes, she was definitely giving off a faint glow, and it was enough to see that – oh _God._

He was sure his eyes were about wide enough to bug out of his head as he saw that there was a red, sticky liquid that could only be blood dripping down her face, emanating from a hole in the right side of her head large enough for him to quite literally see _parts of her brain through._

Barry felt like he was going to be sick, his legs trembling. And damn it, he knew he should have ran, gotten the hell out of there, but he couldn't bring himself to turn away as she just _stared_ at him, his eyes glued to the gruesome sight. Then she took a lilting step forward, and every sane part of the hero was yelling at him at once to _move,_ to _go,_ but suddenly he wholeheartedly understood the saying "deer in the headlights." His feet might as well have weighed a hundred pounds each, unable to even twitch, let alone carry him out of the place. He watched as she took one more strained lurch towards him, gaze focused, and then stopped, not much closer but still far too close for his liking. And she opened her mouth, and the voice that followed was quiet but all too clear in the empty, desolate room where everything had started.

"Your friends killed us," she rasped, her eyes narrowed, and Barry was shaking like a leaf now.

"I –" he started, trying to get out a word but not sure where he was going with it, unable to continue.

"They killed us," she repeated, and looked straight into his eyes then. "Guilt by association."

And the speedster dared to blink, and suddenly she was gone like she had never been there at all. The EMF device went silent before slipping from his weak hand at the same his flashlight fell from the other.

His legs gave out then and Barry sank to his knees on the floor, sweaty palms pressed against the cool concrete as he tried to hold himself together.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Okay! So finally some real ghosty action, and I hope it doesn't feel like I rushed it or put it in too soon or anything! I just really wanted you guys to have that ;)

 **Featured in the next chapter:** Caitlin and Cisco's individual experiences in their own parts of the building


	6. Scared to Death

Caitlin was not enjoying this one bit. Since the moment Cisco had turned the lights off, casting the entirety of STAR Labs into a heavy darkness, she hadn't moved from the hallway just steps away from the Cortex they had all started in. The thermal camera Cisco had given her was clutched tightly in one hand, not even turned on yet; the recording device was shoved unceremoniously in one of her skirt pockets, and she found herself absentmindedly wishing that she had worn something more practical.

 _But for what reason?_ The part of her mind desperate to stay logical throughout all of this retorted. _It's not like you're going to find anything worth running from._

The doctor sucked in a deep breath and turned the camera on finally, watching as it loaded and eventually showed the space in front of her on the screen, bathed in unnatural colors of reds, oranges, purples, blues – a multitude of different shades for all the objects with different heat signatures stretching out before her. Then, slowly but surely, she started walking again. Because the logical part of her brain _had_ to be right. Ghosts? She didn't know why she had let the boys convince her they were a legitimate explanation for what had been going on. Ghosts couldn't – didn't – exist.

 _Metahumans didn't exist either, but look at you now,_ another part of her mind decided to chime in.

"Shut up," she reprimanded herself aloud, letting out a frustrated huff. Either way, creeping through the complex in the dark was not her ideal Friday night, and was something that she definitely never wanted to do again after this was over. The only reason she was even doing it now was because, ghosts or not, _something_ was going on. And she was fed up with it.

Sighing, Caitlin picked up the pace a little, determined now to get through as much of this part of the building as she could despite her unease. The quicker she did this, the quicker she could meet back up with Barry and Cisco and get the lights back on. She kept her attention hyperfocused on the screen of the thermal camera, using it as a guide so as not to run into any walls in the dark. It was actually pretty intriguing, she admitted to herself, seeing STAR Labs quite literally through a different lens.

The singular positive thought immediately fled from her mind once she rounded a corner a few minutes later.

Much to her surprise, the camera showed a figure standing in the middle of the hallway, and she gasped, startled backwards a foot or two. She hadn't been expecting anyone to be in her area.

"Barry? Cisco?" she asked tentatively, moving her eyes up from the camera screen to look directly down the hallway in front of her. She squinted into the blackness, willing her non-adjusted eyes to pick out whichever of the boys was standing there. She felt her large sense of unease coming back however as, despite her best efforts and slowly being able to pick out other details of the hall, she didn't see anyone. Her heart rate speeding up, Caitlin looked back down at the thermal camera to see that the figure was still standing there, unmoving as if staring her down. It was also then that she picked up on the coloring of the figure on the screen, and suddenly her mouth felt dry, goosebumps running up her body. Because it was a deep purple hue, and Cisco and Barry wouldn't show up with that coloring. No person should be that color.

At least, no _living_ person.

Suddenly, the doctor found herself in a panic, her fight-or-flight instincts quickly kicking in as she turned tail and ran the hell out of there, not bothering to look back. For the first time, she found herself envying Barry's super speed, desiring nothing more in the moment than to take off at nearly a thousand miles per hour and leave STAR Labs in the dust. But she was utterly human, and she was painfully aware that she could only move so fast with her natural abilities, and in high heels to boot. She didn't slow down until she had twisted and turned down several other hallways, coming to a stop and leaning against the wall as she tried to catch her breath and calm down. What the _hell_ had just happened? She had literally _just_ convinced herself that ghosts did not exist, but – well, she wasn't exactly sure how else to explain what she had just experienced, and she wasn't in any rush to get moving again after that. Maybe if she just stayed here –

A large crash suddenly sounded off to her right, and Cait let out a squeal equal parts terror and surprise. She whirled towards it, camera pointed out, and for the first time in a long time let out a real curse.

"Oh fuck no," she groaned upon seeing the figure back on the screen next to some kind of object on the floor beside it, possibly a framed blueprint or something it had knocked off of the wall. Hands shaky, she turned herself around at a speed Barry would have been proud of, ready to run once again, but froze in place as the camera picked up another figure at _that_ end of the hallway. An undignified squeak flowed past her lips and her eyes widened, her hands shaking worse now, barely allowing her to keep a grip on the only device that was allowing her to keep track of these figures. Her breaths were uneven as she turned back to face her initial direction, hoping against hope that the first one was gone. Of course it was too much to ask for, because not only was it still there, but now it wasn't standing by idly. It was moving with an alarming rate of speed towards her.

She made a split-second decision, forcing herself, however horrifying, to turn away from it and back towards the second figure. She tried to ignore the fact that she could clearly see that it was now moving as well as she charged towards it and right into a room, throwing the door open and slamming it behind her just as fast.

There wasn't much time to weigh her options before the pounding on the door started.

* * *

Cisco wasn't quite sure what he had been expecting during the lockdown him and his friends had been anticipating for days now. So far, however, it was one of the most uneventful things he had ever experienced. After going down into the basement and powering down the lights, he had been incredibly cautious, searching the place twice over after remembering what had happened to Barry the last time they were down there. But nothing out of the ordinary had happened, aside from walking into a spiderweb and nearly injuring himself in his panic. He would _definitely_ not be mentioning that detail to Barry and Caitlin when they met back up. That incident had been nearly a half hour ago, and since then he had been wandering around on what, if he remembered correctly, was the fifth floor. And he hadn't yet gathered any evidence of the paranormal taking up residence in STAR Labs.

Needless to say, it was incredibly annoying. For the past week, there had been an influx of events targeting all three of them, and now the facility seemed far too calm. With a sigh, the engineer shifted the night vision camera he was holding to his left hand, pulling his phone out of his pocket with his right with the intent to call his friends and see if they were having better luck. Cisco frowned, however, when the screen lit up to reveal that he had no service, which was strange. He _always_ had service in the building, and there was no reasonable explanation he could come up with as to why there was now a lack of it. He supposed that the odd phenomenon was a small start, at least, in showing that something was definitely off about the place. Shaking his head, he shoved his phone back into his pocket and switched the camera back to his dominant hand before continuing to walk through the darkened hallways, eyes focused on the screen to see where he was going.

After several more minutes of exploring without incident, Cisco found himself in an empty lab that he actually recognized, and he forced himself to swallow a lump in his throat. It had been the workspace of one of the former doctors who had worked for Dr. Wells. Cisco hadn't known the woman well, but they had crossed paths a few times because of his association with Caitlin, who had been somewhat closer to her due to their similar jobs. Not quite friends, but acquaintances. Unfortunately, she was one of the unlucky people who had died the night of the explosion. It somehow felt wrong to be in her workspace. Biting his lip, the engineer turned on his heel, fully intending to exit the room and go search somewhere else for the evidence he was trying to gather.

His plans were stopped rather quickly when the door slammed in his face before he could leave.

Cisco let out a yelp, jumping backwards both in fright and to avoid any appendages being slammed in the door. He placed his free hand on his chest, over his rapidly thudding heart, and felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end suddenly as a very sudden, very uneasy feeling washed over him.

Someone – or some _thing_ – was in the room with him. He knew without even turning around to look. For several tense seconds, he considered trying the doorknob to see if the door would open back up, and if he could escape. He had the terrible feeling, however, that he would only find it sealed shut. After all, for what purpose would it have been slammed on him if he could simply run away? Slowly, and very much dreading what he would see when he did so, Cisco turned around.

And was met by the pale face of the doctor whose lab he had wandered into.

"Holy shit!" Cisco cursed, stumbling backwards with a surprised and panicked look on his face. "You – you're –"

"Dead," the woman said impassively, and Cisco realized belatedly that he couldn't even remember her name. It sent a small pang through him, but it wasn't his biggest concern at the moment. He tried to keep himself composed, holding the camera up to capture her figure – only to see that she was gone. Judging by the pockets of cold air in the room, however, she was definitely still in there somewhere. His theory was proven by a loud scraping sound as the metal lab table beside him was suddenly pushed forward: not much, but enough and with enough force to ram harshly into his side. He let out a hiss of pain, nearly dropping the camera as he stumbled. Despite the fear that had enveloped him, Cisco attempted to hold his ground, eyes scanning the darkened room for another glimpse of the woman.

"What do you want!?" he demanded, moving the camera around as well, hoping to capture some of the activity on the device. He wanted to make sure that he had something to show his friends, to prove this had happened. After all, it was a big jump to go from experiencing what he had only _guessed_ were the antics of something paranormal to actually _see_ the paranormal.

"You suffer," came her disembodied voice, and he felt a shiver run down his spine at the chilling words. To suffer? Why on _earth_ –

Cisco didn't get much time to ponder over the clear answer, letting out another yelp as something crashed against the wall, dangerously close to his body.

"Nah uh! Not again with this shit!" the man exclaimed, having an unpleasant flashback of the lamp that nearly hit him a few days before. Biting the bullet, he rushed back at the door, attempting to open it with his free hand. As he had predicted, unfortunately, it wouldn't budge. The engineer could hear the blood rushing in his ears. He _had_ to get out of the room. But how –?

He ducked as he heard rather than saw something else being hurled towards him, wincing as whatever it was – a beaker? – crashed against the wall just as the other object had and shattered, pieces raining down on him. Letting out a string of curses, Cisco took a moment to silently pray that what he was about to do was as easy as it looked in movies before taking a deep breath and raising a leg to kick out as hard as he could at the door. His foot hit it flatly with a dull banging sound, and although it seemed to give a little, it definitely hadn't opened – and it had definitely hurt like hell. So much for easy.

"Damn it!" he yelled, but didn't dwell too long on his failure as he heard something rattling behind him and, assuming the spirit was gearing up for another attack, he raised his leg again.

"Please work," he had time to quickly mutter before slamming his foot back into the door, harder than before. Despite the jarring pain now worse in his foot and spreading up his leg, he found himself quite happy for the moment as the door gave way and flung open. "See ya!" he yelped, taking his chance to hobble quickly away as fast as he could, not daring to look back. He didn't stop for what he figured had to be a solid five minutes or so, finally pausing to catch his breath after ascending two flight of stairs.

Hoping he was safe for the time being, he shifted his weight off of his aching foot as much as he could and pulled his phone back out of his pocket. He needed to get in touch with Caitlin and Barry. Much to his disappointment, however, he saw that there was still no service, even away from the area where he had encountered his ghostly assailant. That wasn't good. He resignedly put it back into his pocket once more and tried to think. If he had been attacked, had they too? He had been so concerned about himself and trying to gather his own footage that he hadn't even considered that, but now that he had, he felt sick. He _had_ to find them, but he had no idea where to start. STAR Labs was huge, and they had all gone in different directions and probably to different floors. The man sucked in a breath. How was he supposed to locate them without a working phone? It would be virtually impossible, and he was painfully aware of the fact.

Then he heard the scream.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Whoops, cliffhanger! Who's screaming? Caitlin or Barry? Find out next chapter ;) Thanks for reading!


	7. Rattled

Cisco wished he could say that he moved right away, rushed bravely towards the sound of the scream to save the day. But, well, it wouldn't be true.

The second that the sound reached his ears, the engineer froze, his whole body tensing. After what he had just gone through, he figured it was only right to be a little skeptical, to question whether what he had heard was _really_ who he thought it was or something else playing a trick on him – especially when it was accompanied by the sound of a harsh banging. But when he heard the scream echoing down the hallway for the second time, he felt a pang of guilt course through him for ignoring it the first time.

It was Caitlin.

That time, no one could stop him from taking off like a bat out of hell and running in the direction he thought it had come from, injured foot and aching side be damned.

"Caitlin!?" he called out, panic seeping into his voice, and for the first time regretted turning the lights off; it was quite difficult to keep track of where he was going off of the night vision camera alone. "Cait, where are you!?" By that point in time, the screaming had tapered off, and there a worrisome moment where he thought that something terrible had happened. But after what seemed like an eternity, he heard her shaky voice calling back to him.

"Cisco!" she screeched. He immediately turned down the corridor to his right – where he quite literally ran into her, their bodies colliding painfully and both falling to the floor. The doctor let out a startled "oof!" while Cisco groaned.

"Cisco!" he heard her repeat after a moment, and if he expected her to sound apologetic, or happy to see him, he was wrong. Her voice sounded terrified, and she jumped up quickly, hauling him to his feet seconds later. "Run!" she instructed, and didn't give him much time to follow orders before he was dazedly being dragged along with her.

"Why – what –?" he started to asked in a pant as they turned back down the hallway he had just come from, but she simply shook her head in a gesture of _I'll explain later._ He shut his mouth and continued to jog painfully after her. He couldn't say how long it was before Caitlin finally allowed them to come to a stop, both breathing heavily. The moment she let go of his arm, he slumped against the wall, using its support to take some weight off of his bad side.

It was another minute before he felt he could speak. "What happened?" he wheezed, and he was just able to make out her face in the darkness as her head whipped up, her eyes meeting his. She was still breathing rather heavily.

"I – there was – and they were pounding on the door and –"

"Whoa, whoa," Cisco interrupted. "Full sentences, Cait," he instructed gently. She nodded slightly, allowing herself to simply _breathe_ for several seconds before continuing, thankfully making more sense the second time around.

"I – I picked up two figures on the thermal camera," she told him, her voice wobbly. "But Cisco, I – I couldn't _see_ them, not with my own eyes, and they were so cold…" She trailed off and took a deep breath. "And then they came at me, and I locked myself in a room, but they just kept pounding on the door and – I didn't know what to do. But I found another door in the back that lead out to the hallway I found you in," she continued. "I just – panicked."

Cisco put a gentle hand on his friend's shoulder.

"Hey, it's alright," he said, though clearly it was _not_. His stomach churned thinking about the experience he had had, but pushed his own fear aside for the time being. There were more pressing things to deal with. "Something happened to me too," he admitted to her. The doctor's eyes widened, and she opened her mouth as if to speak, but Cisco cut her off before she could. "We can compare notes later. But right now, we need to find Barry and make sure he's alright. Do you know where he is?"

Caitlin shook her head. "We left the Cortex at the same time," she said, clearly working to get herself under control now. "I turned right, and he turned left. I think he might have been heading to the some of the lower floors, but I'm not sure. Can't we just call him?

Cisco let out a puff of air and shook his head. "No, the service is down. We're gonna have to do this the old-fashioned way. I guess we just start heading down and see if we can figure out where he went." Caitlin nodded, and though he couldn't make out her features all that well, he could tell she was terrified, and he didn't blame her. But neither of them were going to abandon Barry, either. Cisco was the first to move, still using his camera to help navigate, heading towards where he believed the nearest flight of stairs was. Caitlin scurried after him, and after a few seconds of silence spoke up, her voice stronger than before.

"Are you limping?" she asked with concern, and Cisco sighed.

"Yeah," he admitted. "I kind of had to kick a door down. But I'll be fine," he was quick to say. The engineer could practically picture her unconvinced face before she even responded.

"I'm looking at that after we find Barry and get the hell out of here," she said, and he simply nodded, in no mood to argue with her. "Anything else I need to know about?"

"I think my side's bruised," he admitted. "I, ah, got hit with a table." Caitlin didn't push that issue, clearly sensing that it had something to do with whatever had happened to him while he was alone, but he was sure that he'd be getting a thorough exam later. One less thing to look forward to. The pair fell back into an uneasy silence, and thankfully soon reached the flight of stairs Cisco had been leading them towards. The two descended quickly but quietly, an unspoken agreement between them to try and draw as little attention as they could to the dark presences occupying the building. Cisco paused once he reached the bottom, and Caitlin nearly walked into him.

"What are you doing?" she asked quietly.

"Listening," he answered, his voice just as soft. He had been able to find Caitlin only by the copious amount of noise she had been making with her screams, but he didn't hear anything that signalled that Barry was nearby. He wasn't quite sure if that was a good or bad thing, but it was a little disheartening. Without any audible cues to the speedster's whereabouts, it would definitely be harder to locate him. Especially since they didn't know for sure if he was even still on the lower levels.

"Let's just keep moving," Caitlin advised after several long, silent seconds, clearly uncomfortable with staying in one place for too long. She was not about to be a sitting duck. Cisco sighed and nodded; he couldn't blame her.

"I just wish we knew exactly what floor to look on," he muttered as they continued on their way, eyes once again focused on the night vision camera.

"I know," Caitlin replied, still keeping her voice quiet, as if not wanting to be overheard. "I'm _really_ starting to regret splitting up. He doesn't even know where he's going," she added guiltily, and Cisco cringed. He hadn't really thought about that before suggesting this whole thing, but he probably should have.

"Damn it, you're right," he said regretfully. "But – I mean, he can handle himself, right? With his super speed and agility and all that."

"I don't know how well powers work against what we're dealing with, Cisco," she said, biting at her lip and purposefully avoiding flat-out speaking of what exactly it was they _were_ dealing with.

"Well, I'm sure –" Cisco began after a moment, but cut himself off when him and Caitlin were hit by a strong gust of air, and a bright flash of light suddenly rushed through a hall perpendicularly connected to the one they were in. They both yelped, and for or a moment, Cisco was sure it was another angry spirit, but the details of what had just happened quickly connected in his brain once the initial shock faded. Caitlin seemed to realize at the exact same time as they shared a brief look.

"That was Barry!" the doctor got out, and it was all the motivation they needed to take off jogging the way he had gone. Cisco finally made out his figure through the night vision camera several minutes later, panting, badly shaking, and leaning against a wall for support.

"Barry!" Caitlin called, having picked up his presence through her own camera, which she dropped in favor of rushing towards him. All qualms about being too loud were pushed aside as she saw the state he was in. The speedster's head snapped up, and through the green-colored image on the camera screen, Cisco could see clear terror in his wide eyes. In the short time he had known the Barry, Cisco had watched the man fight multiple horrifying metahumans and come back just fine. Never had he looked as shaken as he did right now. He made no attempt to move as Cisco and Caitlin closed in on him, keeping his body pressed up against the wall.

"Dude, are you okay?" Cisco asked as they approached, and was quickly aware that it was probably the most stupid question in the history of stupid questions. Clearly, he was not.

Barry swallowed nervously, eyes shifting back and forth between his two friends as if not quite sure who to focus on. "I – Uhm, I…" he stuttered, but wasn't able to get much more out than that. Caitlin, her own fear shoved aside for the moment, was suddenly in full-on doctor mode.

"Hey, it's alright, Barry," she said in a clear attempt to comfort him, and Cisco wasn't sure how she had managed to make her voice sound so soothing. "Just take some deep breaths, okay? You're gonna be just fine. We're gonna get you out of here." She turned to Cisco then, getting close to his ear before whispering, "He's experiencing mild shock. We need to get out of here. Now."

Cisco didn't need to be told twice; he was fairly impressed that he was keeping himself as calm as he was. Whatever Barry had seen must have been ten times worse than him and Cait. The engineer nodded vigorously as Caitlin focused her attention back on Barry, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"Come on," she said softly, looping her arm around his and starting to guide him away from the wall, back towards the flight of stairs they had come from not long ago; they could use them to get to the first floor and out the main entrance. Cisco followed quickly behind them, stopping only briefly to pick the thermal camera up from the floor before walking ahead to lead the way with his camera. He let out the biggest breath of relief when they made it down without further incident and out of the building, blinking against the light of the street lamps. The cool night air washing over his skin suddenly felt like the best thing in the world as opposed to the oppressing environment inside of STAR Labs. Barry apparently felt the same way. Cisco saw him take a deep breath as Caitlin rubbed gentle circles on his back, sticking close to his side. Some of the tension left his body, and his shaking was visibly calming down.

"Good, Barry, you're alright," Caitlin said encouragingly, though he could detect a bit of shakiness behind the comforting tone. She was still rattled herself; they all were.

Cisco watched with a bit of awkwardness, another standard _are you alright?_ on the tip of his tongue. He bit the question back, knowing that the answer was still no – and that it probably would be for a while, for all of them. He cleared his throat after a minute or two, and both Caitlin and Barry turned slowly to look at them, weariness etched clearly into their faces. He was sure he looked the same.

"We should get out of here," he said. Being out of the building was great, but standing within several feet of it was even starting to feel uncomfortable. "I, uh, don't know about you guys, but I could go for hella caffeine at the moment. Jitters?" he asked, offering a weak smile. He figured coffee in a bright, semi-populated place would at the very least make them all feel a little more safe – and a little more normal. For several seconds, both of his friends were quiet, and he almost rescinded his offer.

"Yeah," Barry croaked finally, his voice rough, the first thing he had said since getting out of the complex. Caitlin offered a weak, tight smile of her own in response to Cisco's.

"Okay," she said quietly, nodding as well.

"Great," Cisco said with as much enthusiasm as he could muster, which at the moment wasn't very much. "Jitters it is."


	8. Late Night Jitters

**Author's Note:** Hey guys, no new action in this chapter, but soon! I promise. This one had to happen to move things along :) Hope you enjoy!

* * *

Jitters was several blocks away from STAR Labs. Although it would have been quicker for Barry to run them there, neither Caitlin nor Cisco were willing to ask him, and he didn't offer. The three walked in near silence, aside from the sound of awkward scuffling as Cisco limped and the clacking of Caitlin's high heels on the cement. Every so often, the doctor would glance over at both the engineer and the speedster, clearly itching to check both of them over thoroughly, but all of her equipment was back at STAR. She would at least take a peek at Cisco's foot once they got to the coffee shop. On the slim bright side, Barry at least seemed to be doing better than he had been inside the building. It was the small victories that mattered at the moment.

At the group's slow pace, it took a record time of about fifteen minutes to reach their intended destination. Cisco grabbed the door and pulled open; Caitlin and Barry walked in quietly, and the engineer followed behind them, all three cringing at the heavy sound the door made as it closed. They made their way to an unoccupied table at the back and sat down together, no one quite ready to approach the bar to order. The three shifted awkwardly in their seats, the sound of Barry's fingers drumming absentmindedly on the table the only noise in their vicinity for several long seconds. Caitlin finally broke the barrier and spoke up.

"Cisco, lift up your pant leg," she said softly, and Cisco complied without complaint, sticking his foot out to rest on her chair and rolling up his jeans. She pulled down the hem of his sock a bit, examining the small, discolored area of bruising around his ankle and pushing gently. Cisco winced slightly, and the doctor pulled her hand away. "Just sprained, I think," she said. "I'd have liked to examine it better, but…" she trailed off with no need to complete the thought. Both boys knew her tools were in the complex they had fled from. Cisco gave her a small, appreciative nod before pulling his pant leg back down and withdrawing his leg from Caitlin's chair. He lifted his shirt up without being asked to, letting her quickly look over his bruise to determine it wasn't anything major. They fell back into a silence then, Barry's finger tapping becoming increasingly agitated as he stared blankly down at the table. The team was pulled out of their thoughts by a familiar voice.

"Hey, guys!" All three of their heads snapped up to the sight of Iris approaching, her Jitters apron on, a notepad and pen in hand, and a far too chipper smile on her face. "I didn't expect to see any of you here so late. I figured you'd all be at Cisco's," she said, motioning to the engineer. "Anyways, none of you came to the counter. You gonna order anything?" she questioned.

The three friends were stiff, startled by the sudden intrusion, even if it was just Iris; clearly, they had all forgotten she had picked up an evening shift. They eyed each other uneasily and Iris, ever observant, caught on quickly to the dark mood shared between them. She frowned, eyes flicking between them. "Are you guys alright?" she asked seriously, her gaze honing in on Barry. "Bar, you look pale," she said, brow creasing in concern.

"I'm – I'm fine," Barry said, trying and failing to not stumble over his words. "We're fine. It's fine." The frown did not leave Iris' face; if anything, she looked more worried, clearly seeing right through Barry's lie; she knew him well enough to figure out when he wasn't being truthful.

"You don't look fine," she said insistently, keeping her voice low in an attempt to keep from drawing attention to their little corner.

"Iris, just drop it, alright?" Barry snapped. The words came out sounding harsher than he had intended, and he felt slightly guilty upon seeing the hurt look that crossed her face, but he was in no mood to discuss what had happened with her – he refused to have her involved. The look was gone just as quickly, but Barry could sense the worry.

"Fine," she said, her eyes narrowed into a _this is not over_ kind of look, and he averted his gaze back to the table. "What do you guys want to drink?"

"Just three espressos," Cisco jumped in, saving Barry from any further interaction with her. She nodded, casting another sidelong glance at the speedster before disappearing back behind the counter to make their orders. They remained silent until they had the steaming mugs of coffee in front of them and Iris was once again out of earshot.

"So…I'm assuming we've all come to the same conclusion that STAR Labs is being, ah, haunted," Cisco said in a quiet voice, the first to address the issue at hand. Barry and Caitlin both nodded, grimacing. Cisco paused for a moment before continuing. "I got what happened to me on video, I think," he said, glancing at the night vision camera he had set down on the table in front of him before looking at Caitlin. "I saw – I saw that doctor woman you talked to sometimes," he went on nervously, and Caitlin's eyes widened.

"Doctor Ashburn?" she questioned, and Cisco swallowed a lump in his throat before nodding. _That_ was her name.

"She died in the explosion," Barry guessed, his voice soft, and Caitlin nodded as well.

"Yes," she confirmed, looking back at Cisco. "What did – what did she do?"

Cisco ran a hand through his hair and sighed. "She wasn't happy," he said. "She said something about wanting me to suffer. She, ah, locked the lab I was in somehow. Her lab. She started throwing things at me, pushed the table into my side. That's why I had to kick the door down. And that's right before I found you, Cait." The doctor's expression was grave.

"I saw one too," Barry spoke up, his voice still slightly rough, and Caitlin and Cisco both focused their attention on him. His fingers had stopped their tapping on the table, and now he was clenching and unclenching his fists slowly. "In the Particle Accelerator room. I, uhm, don't know who it – she – was," he said, grimacing as he thought about the encounter. But part of – part of her head was blown off. Her face was dripping blood, and I…" he trailed off momentarily, his voice becoming quieter as he caught Iris glancing over in their direction. He quickly averted his eyes. "I could see parts of her brain. And she told me…she said that you guys killed her. That I was guilty by association."

Caitlin and Cisco both frowned, looking uncomfortable.

"So this is about the explosion," Cisco murmured, an unpleasant expression on his face. "But I don't get it. We weren't the ones who _caused_ it. Why would they come after us?"

"We work for Dr. Wells," Caitlin replied, biting her lip. "He's the one behind the whole thing. And me and you were working at STAR when all of it was going on. I don't think they care whether or not we're directly connected."

Cisco ran a hand through his hair, his shoulders slumping. "Cait, did the two figures you picked up on the thermal say anything?" he asked, and Caitlin shook her head.

"No, they just came after me," she said. "That's why I locked myself in the room, why they were pounding on the door."

"Either way, I think the point is pretty clear," Barry spoke up bitterly, and Cisco nodded.

"They want revenge. We're lucky we got out of there tonight. And I don't think it's a great idea to go back."

"We can't just leave," Caitlin said, her voice barely above a whisper at this point. "What happens when Dr. Wells comes back? What are we supposed to tell him?"

"I don't know," Cisco admitted. "But what are we supposed to do?" Their little lockdown was one thing, before they knew exactly what they were dealing with. Now that it had been confirmed, and they had all been through their own terrifying experiences, it felt a lot more real. Nothing like this ever happened on the dumb ghost hunting shows.

"What about getting a priest or something? Isn't that what they always do in the movies?" Barry questioned awkwardly.

"You really think any priest in Central would be willing risk their lives to come to STAR Labs and deal with angry, potentially murderous ghosts?" Caitlin asked, raising an eyebrow. "And that's if they even believed us in the first place. It sounds ridiculous."

"Then we're gonna have to do something about it ourselves," Barry muttered, and Caitlin's eyes widened.

"Are you _crazy?_ " she asked, far too loud. Several heads turned their way, and Barry caught Iris looking over again as well. Caitlin's cheeks flushed at the unwanted attention, and she quickly lowered her voice. "Look what happened there tonight by ourselves. Barry, you went into _shock_."

It was Barry's turn to blush, his cheeks turning bright red, but a hard, determined look crept into his eyes.

"Because I wasn't prepared," he said. "None of us were really expecting to find what we did. But now we know. And like you said, we can't just abandon STAR Labs."

"What are you suggesting, Barry?" Cisco asked.

"We should look over everything we recorded tonight, study it. Do some more research…and find a way to get rid of them."

Caitlin and Cisco both looked uneasy at the idea, and Barry could see it plainly on their faces.

"Look, I'm not saying that it's the greatest idea," he admitted, letting out a sigh and running a hand nervously through his hair. "I'm not exactly looking forward to it, but what else is there? We have to deal with this, and the sooner the better."

"I know you're right," Caitlin admitted meekly. "I just – I don't like it. You realize about a year ago, all of our lives were _normal,_ right? No metahumans…no _ghosts._ This is a lot to take in."

"Amen," Cisco muttered, taking a big sip of his coffee.

"We can do this," Barry said, trying his best to sound confident, but it sounded rather shaky even to his own ears. Cisco and Caitlin nodded numbly, clearly lacking confidence as well. The three quietly nursed their coffees for a few more minutes until they had finished, and Cisco broke the silence.

"We can go to my place," he offered. "Iris and Joe already think Barry's crashing there anyways. It'll be easier to get research done if we're all together."

"Alright," Barry said with a nod, placing his empty coffee cup down on the table, placing the money they owed down before standing. Cisco and Caitlin followed suit, and the members of Team Flash walked close together out the doors of the small coffee shop and towards Cisco's apartment.

* * *

"Dad? I'm home!" Iris called out as she walked in the front door of the house, setting her bag down and kicking her shoes off.

"In the kitchen!" her father's voice called back, and the barista made her way to the room, smiling softly as she found him sitting at the kitchen table finishing a later dinner. "Hey, baby. How was your shift?" he asked as she sat down across from him.

"Fine," she said. "I actually saw Barry and his STAR Labs friends there," she added, and Joe raised an eyebrow.

"Oh?" he asked, and she nodded.

"Hey, did…did Barry ever say why he was spending the night at Cisco's?" she asked.

Joe shook his head. He had assumed it was something Flash related, but he wasn't about to tell Iris of his suspicions. "No, he didn't. Why?"

Iris sighed before continuing. "It's just…they all seemed really off. Like they were spooked or something. And when I asked Barry about it, he was really snappish and wouldn't tell me anything. I'm worried."

Joe frowned at the new information. Barry had seemed fine that morning at work, and as far as he knew, there hadn't been any metahuman activity today. He couldn't think of anything else off the top of his head that would have his foster son acting strangely.

"...I'm sure he's fine," the detective tried to assure his daughter. "But I can talk to him tomorrow, if it'll make you feel any better." Iris nodded.

"That'd be great," she said. "I wanna talk to him too. We can do it together."

"Whatever makes you happy." Iris smiled lightly.

"Thanks, dad. I'm gonna head up to bed." She stood and walked over to his side of the table, giving him a quick peck on the cheek. "I love you."

"I love you too, baby," Joe replied as she walked away. "Night." Once she was gone, he sighed softly and quickly finished his dinner.

What was going on this time?


	9. Spirituality

**Author's Note:** Hey guys! I'm so, so sorry this is late! I really wanted to get it up Tuesday like normal, but it's the end of the semester and I've been busy worrying about last minute assignments as well as finals, and I also got a job. So Monday consisted of class and then an 8 hour training shift, and I was way too tired to work on it after that.

Good news is, it's up now! Bad news however is, I have run out of premade chapters. That means I now have to try and keep up with the schedule without any chapters already ready to go, which will be a little hard currently. So unfortunately, I may not be able to get these up on schedule anymore, but I will try my hardest! Also, I'm sorry this chapter is shorter than normal, and once-again has no ghost action. That is back next chapter however, and will continue through the rest of the story – I know exactly where everything is going from here!

Last thing, because this is getting to be a long note! Despite the fact that it's probably a terrible idea working on two stories at once when I can't even promise regular updates for this one anymore, I have started work on my sequel to Infected, and will try to get that up soon even though I can't promise regular updates for that either. But I figured everyone has waited long enough, so I hope those who read Infected will enjoy that! Anyways, to my few faithful readers, enjoy this chapter and let me know what you think! Teddy out.

* * *

It was a long night at Cisco's apartment. The three members of Team Flash spent several hours pouring over evidence and researching various supposed ways to get rid of the paranormal, and it wasn't until the early hours of the morning when they finally succumbed to sleep. Caitlin was the first one up, stretching and yawning as her eyes blinked open. She rubbed briefly at her cramped neck; she had fallen asleep in an uncomfortable position in an arm chair in the small living room. Her eyes flitted over the rest of the space, searching for the boys. Cisco was lounged on the couch, his laptop still resting on his lap and one arm across his chest, moving steadily with his breaths. Barry was sprawled across the floor, his clothes slightly rumpled and his phone still clutched loosely in one of his hands. Caitlin couldn't help but smile fondly at her two sleeping friends and grabbed her own cell from the arm of the chair, checking the time. It was already after 10:00, and the doctor sighed. She would have loved to let them rest longer; hell, she would have loved to rest longer too, but they had things to discuss, and things to do in preparation for what was to come later that day.

They would be going back into STAR Labs. Their excursion would take place in the light of day this time, in an attempt to make things less terrifying and perhaps less violent, but none of them were looking forward to it. As they had experienced, the spirits could still attempt to harm them even during the day. But there was at least the small hope that they would only actually manifest at night. With a sigh, Caitlin stood and walked over to Cisco and Barry.

"Hey, guys, wake up," she urged, shaking Cisco with one hand and gently nudging Barry with her foot. Barry barely stirred, merely groaning and attempting to roll over. Cisco on the other hand opened his eyes and blinked up at her blearily, sitting up quickly. The motion sent his laptop falling off his lap and directly onto Barry. At that disturbance, Barry yelped and shot up, also blinking blearily and taking in his surroundings. Caitlin couldn't help but chuckle softly at the brief confused look on his face before he remembered where he was. "Morning, boys."

"Mmh, what time is it?" Cisco asked, running a hand through his disheveled hair as Barry sluggishly moved the laptop off of him.

"10:20," Caitlin replied. "I would've let you sleep longer, but if we're going to STAR, I want it done and over with quickly," she added, sitting down beside Cisco on the couch as he scooted over to make room for her. Barry remained on the floor, repositioning himself so that he was facing both of his friends.

"Did we ever really decide what we were doing, though?" the speedster asked, a serious look replacing the sleepy one from only seconds ago. Caitlin sucked in a breath.

"I think we should try the thing Cisco found first," she said. "The smudging thing. It sounds the easiest, and the least dangerous. I think there's less of a chance of making the spirits more angry."

"That was the natural one, right?" Barry asked. "Burning the sage to purify the area or whatever?" Cisco nodded.

"Yeah," he replied. "It sounded like the, ah, most peaceful option." Caitlin and Barry both nodded in agreement.

"But we need to be prepared for an attack," Barry added after a moment. "Just because they haven't shown themselves in the daytime so far doesn't mean they can't or won't, and we've all seen what they can do even without actually manifesting," he said, voicing Caitlin's earlier thoughts exactly.

"How do we prepare for that?" Caitlin asked, fiddling idly with the hem of her shirt.

"Just – mentally, I guess. We need to watch each other carefully. No splitting up this time, even if it makes the process faster. And if it doesn't look like it's working, then…we use the backup option." Caitlin and Cisco nodded solemnly without needing clarification. They both knew what the backup option was, and they weren't eager to attempt it. It had the potential to be a lot more dangerous.

"Okay," Cisco said finally, a look of grim determination set into his face. "We should go buy the items for the smudging, then." Without another word, the three friends stood and made their way for the door. They were gone by the time Barry's phone, left on the floor, started ringing.

* * *

Joe sighed and set his phone down on the table after the third time of calling Barry and only getting his voicemail. It was early, only about 10:30 in the morning, but he had expected that Barry would be back by now to provide some sort of satisfying explanation as to what was going on. He wasn't.

"He's really not picking up?" Iris, sitting across from him at the kitchen table, asked in disbelief. Barry practically always picked up his phone, especially if he saw that it was Joe or Iris calling. Joe shook his head.

"No, he's not," he replied with slight irritation, mixed with a boatload of worry. This wasn't like Barry at all. Iris could sense her father's concern, but couldn't do much about it; she was just as worried about Barry as he was, and Caitlin and Cisco as well. Judging by how they had been acting the previous night, coupled with Barry's failure to return home, it was obvious that something was definitely up.

"Can you try Caitlin or Cisco?" she questioned, and Joe shook his head.

"I don't have their numbers." He supposed it was strange, considering they were the ones who had been watching over Barry during his entire nine month coma, but the only number he had been provided with was that of Harrison Wells – and he knew the man was out of town for another day or two at least. There was silence between the father-daughter pair for a moment before Joe stood suddenly, grabbing his jacket. Iris raised an eyebrow.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"I'm going to look for them," he replied simply, sliding the jacket on.

"I'm coming too," she announced, determination in her eyes. Joe gave her a wary look. Whatever was happening with Barry and his friends, he was nearly 100% convinced it had something to do with the other side of Barry's life – the supernatural side that Iris currently had no knowledge of. And he wanted to keep her knowledge of it as limited as possible.

"Iris –" he started to shut her down, but she shook her head.

"I'm coming, dad," she said. "I'm just as worried as you are." Joe sighed then, knowing full well that he would never be able to convince her to stay home. She was stubborn, especially when it came to Barry's wellbeing. If he said no, she would just go out looking herself, and then he wouldn't be there for her if anything happened.

"Fine," he said, grabbing the car keys and heading for the door. "Let's go, then."

* * *

The trio took Cisco's car rather than walking this time. Barry could have sped them to their location easily enough, but Caitlin was insistent that they all needed to save their energy for what was to come, in order to be as alert as possible. Thankfully, the drive to Central City's only spiritual shop wasn't too far of a ride, and they made it before it hit 11:00. As they walked through the doors, they weren't surprised to find that they were the store's only occupants, aside from the middle-aged woman working the cash register. She smiled brightly at the three, delighted with their presence.

"Good morning," she greeted pleasantly. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

"As a matter of fact, there is," Barry spoke up for his team, giving the woman a small smile in return. "We're, ah, looking for sage sticks. Do you happen to have any?"

The woman – Beth, they could see on her nametag – nodded without hesitation.

"Yes, of course," she said, still smiling as she stepped out from behind the desk and began approaching the opposite end of the small store, beckoning for them to follow. "If you don't mind me asking, is this for a smudging ritual?" she questioned.

"It is," Caitlin confirmed as they walked after her, all of them stopping as the woman did as well, picking up a bundle of straw-looking material wrapped with thin string.

"Well, this is what you're looking for," she announced, holding it out. Cisco reached out and grasped it in his hand, nodding graciously. "But I'm assuming you've never done this before?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Is it that obvious?" Barry asked with a slight grimace, and Beth laughed softly.

"Kind of. You'll need an abalone shell to burn that in as well, a smudging feather, and another herb or two won't hurt," she said kindly, turning back to the shelf of merchandise she had grabbed the sage stick from and carefully searching for the other materials. "May I ask what you're doing this for?"

Caitlin, Cisco and Barry all eyed each other uneasily.

"Would you believe us if we said spirits?" Cisco asked slowly, and much to their surprise, Beth only nodded again.

"You bet I would," she replied. "A lot of people wouldn't, but I'm well aware of the negative energies that can exist in the world. Sage is good for that kind of thing; it's meant to cleanse and heal. Some cedar wouldn't hurt either. That's used for protection," she added, expertly picking out everything she had mentioned and holding it out to them. She smiled softly as she stood up and saw the surprised looks on her customers' faces, but there was a serious edge to her voice when she spoke next.

"Now, how much do you know about what you're doing?" she questioned.

"We, uh, read some internet articles," Cisco said.

"Not a bad place to start," the woman said, crossing her arms. "It's pretty simple, if you do it right. First off, do it during the day, not night; negative energy is worse at night. You're gonna want to light that sage stick first, make sure it's smoking well. That's when you'll want to place it in the shell with some of the cedar, and use the feather to spread the smoke around all of the areas you want to cleanse. How big of a space are you dealing with here? One room? A whole house?"

"Uhm, a little bigger than a house," Barry said awkwardly.

"A lot bigger, actually," Caitlin piped up, her tone nervous.

"Well, it's ideal to get to every room that's affected, if not the whole building," the woman spoke. "But it's starting to sound like that's not an option for you. So…do your best, okay? I would hate for anything to happen to any of you. This is serious stuff."

"We know," Cisco said quietly, face unpleasant as he recalled the events of the previous night, as well as the past few days. Beth could easily see the distress from looking between the three.

"You know what?" she said. "This stuff is on the house, okay? Don't worry about it. Just let me know how everything goes."

"Seriously? You don't have to do that," Barry tried, but she shook her head.

"I want to," she said. "But seriously, let me know what happens, okay?"

Barry nodded lightly and smiled gratefully. "We will," he promised. "Thank you."

The woman smiled and nodded, and Team Flash headed back out the same way they had come, remaining quiet until they reached Cisco's car once more.

"Do you think that this is going to work?" Caitlin asked softly. "I don't want to try the other thing. The banishing," she said, and Barry and Cisco both immediately looked wary.

"None of us want to,' Cisco said. "So let's just…hope, alright? That's really all we can do. Hope."

Caitlin nodded, biting at her lip as she slid back into the car, the boys following suit.

And then they were on their way back to STAR Labs.


End file.
